Another Daoist Christmas

...And in honor of the day, here is my annual reflection:

I have blogged on a Taoist view, or my Taoist view, of Thanksgiving.  But what about Christmas?  What would a Taoist make of that?

    First, and most obvious, a Taoist would stand apart from the central function of the holiday: celebrating the birth of the earth-bound expression of a singular, transcendent God.  On both the question of birth and the question of God, a Taoist would have reservations.

    Philosophic Taoism does not recognize a transcendent God in the manner of Christianity.  God might be found in Taoism (i.e. we could read Him into Taoist texts), but God was not a part of the Taoist worldview in ancient times, and need not be a part of a modernized Taoism.  As to birth, the Tao Te Ching tells us that Tao (Way) encompasses both being and non-being; so, the passage from pre-birth (whatever that might be) to birth, and from birth to death, are not all that important. We (or the stuff we are made of) are still part of Tao even as we make these transitions.  That is why Chuang Tzu was able to get over the death of his wife fairly quickly: he realized that she had simply moved into another form along a ceaseless path of continual change.  Birth, then, need not be celebrated, and God need not be celebrated.  Not much room there for Christmas.

    But there may be one element of the Christmas story that a Taoist could relate to: the child in the manger.

     Taoism views the infant as closer to Tao than most adults.  As we grow, we fill ourselves with all sorts of human learning, much of which takes us away from our natural selves and catches us up in shallow social conventions.  The mind of an infant is empty, and it is precisely that sort of emptiness that Taoism strives for.  Thus, in passage 55 of the Tao Te Ching, we read:

Embody Integrity's abundance
and you're like a vibrant child

hornets and vipers can't bite,
savage beasts can't maul
and fierce birds can't claw,

bones supple and muscles tender, but still gripping firmly.   

    The child, in all of his innocence, cannot be harmed by human knowledge and practices, which are utterly alien to him.  The child, then, is something to celebrate.

    And the idea of a poor child, a child of meager means, born in a manger, resonates with the Taoist notion that the low will be high, the dark light, etc..  All the more reason to rejoice at the Christmas scene.

    But the purpose of Taoist rejoicing (which, in any event, would be circumspect) would not rest on the promise of the ultimate transcendence of the Christ child.  Rather, the child would be celebrated for his immanence; that is, in recognition that each thing holds within itself the fullest expression of itself and, under sufficient conditions of freedom, will grow into itself fully.   

    This may not be too far off the Christian message of the equality of all things before God, just without the God.  Chuang Tzu tells us that in Way (Tao)  everything "moves as one and the same."  Each thing has its place in Tao, its Integrity, and Tao is the perfect summation of all things.  Each thing thus deserves equal respect.  Furthermore, we should strictly limit our actions, lest they interfere with the integrity of other things.  The meaning and significance of each thing comes from within it.  We cannot improve upon anything and we should nothing that might dominate or impose our expectations on it. 

    So, it would be in that spirit - a cautious, respectful, inward-looking spirit - that a Taoist would celebrate the integrity and beauty of the child in the manger.

     Merry Christmas!

Comments

[Will]

Another question, I think, is what a Taoist would say about the commercially-enhanced holiday season, and the previous solstice festivals that Christmas was intended to replace.

Merry Christmas! I'll be back in Billsville one weekend in January.

[Michael A. Lewis]

The season is what it is.

In the real world, the slow, inevitable turning of the planet takes us through the shortest day of the northern himsphere, reminding us of our temporratry presence on Earth and the ultimate impermanence of all.

In the coming days, the returning sun carries the message of hope that there is much to experience before the dark returns, once again.

The Tao flows ever onward to the sea.

[Christopher]

Well - after we cut through all the contradictory and confused messages - isn't Christmas really simply a celebration of children? The use of the folklore about the Christ-child seems to me to be a way to emphasise what you pointed out about how children are "closer to the Way." They are to be honoured and respected, and admired deeply - as they are nurtured and guided. They can teach us things and give us insights. At this time of year, we adults (just like the "Wise men coming to Bethlehem") bring gifts to them, so that they can be facilitated in respect to their hopes and dreams and interests.

Admittedly, Christian folklore - like that of most of our world religions - is convoluted, sometimes disturbing, and certainly not straightforward in the same way that Daoist or Confucian texts might be. Yet and still, the metaphors are used by people in very specific ways, for reasons which are geared to the situation.